easy silence
by siobhansadler
Summary: Sometimes it amazed her how easily he could calm her down, how he could make this easy silence replace the horrible things running through her head.


**Easy Silence **

**AN: I'm not sure if Olivia, Peter, or Etta would remember anything that happened in the other timeline, but it's my personal headcannon that they did, or at least Peter and Olivia did. **

* * *

"_Answers only make more questions_

_and I need something to believe in"_

* * *

The feel of the towel is so bizarre beneath her fingers; the soft fabric stings in a way that shouldn't be possible of the soft cotton. Hours ago, she never would've been able to feel something so...comforting. Hours ago, there wouldn't have been anything so soft available to them. Well, maybe there might've been, but she wouldn't have noticed. There, everything hurt, even the things that shouldn't have. The sheets were so cold that they burned her skin, the blankets were itchy and covered in holes. The simple happiness that they all managed to cling to was wrapped up in the pain that constantly burned within them. The pain of watching their world turn into the living hell that it became, finding Nina dead by her own hand, watching their beautiful, amazing daughter die.

After Etta died, everything in that cold, dark world became impossibly worse. The water was colder, the sky grayer. What little food they had, had no taste. Not that any of that mattered really, because she felt that she couldn't feel much of anything. After feeling the life leave your daughter as she dies in your arms, there's nothing worth feeling. Olivia couldn't help thinking about the troubled life their young daughter had lived. Because they weren't quick enough, because they couldn't get to her, she grew up in that messed up world and there wasn't- isn't a second that she doesn't hate herself for not being able to run just a little faster. Their beautiful baby had to learn to fight, she had to avenge her parents and she had to save the world. All of that on the shoulders of the little girl that had spent the day playing in the sandbox with her Daddy in their backyard. Their baby stood so strong in a world that she just couldn't overcome. All because her Mommy and Daddy couldn't get to her.

Every time Olivia closed her eyes, she saw her daughter's looking back at her. That was what she recognized when she saw her again for the first time. Her adult daughter didn't look too much like the little girl she remembered. Her hair was lighter and she'd outgrown her curls, her face didn't have the soft roundness of a baby but the sharp angles of a grown woman. Her eyes, though, were the same eyes that she'd burned into memory. Her eyes didn't hold the childlike curiosity they had once been filled with, but replaced by such a passion and strength that was somehow so remarkably their little three year old, it was hard to explain, but in that grown woman's eyes, she saw her baby. When Etta looked at her, her eyes still held the same unfaltering adoration that her baby had always looked at her with, adoration that she never thought and now knows that she doesn't deserve at all.

So soon after losing Etta the second, Peter left her too. He put that tech in his head and she slowly lost her husband all over again. Like the first time they lost Etta, only so much worse. For what seemed like forever, she lost them both. The two most important things in her life were gone in the blink of an eye and it felt like she was drowning. She couldn't count the amount of times she woke in the middle of the night, unable to breathe.

Of course, she couldn't blame Peter. They'd just lost their daughter. She didn't blame him. She helped him, she tried as hard as she could, and eventually, it worked. She held the tech that almost tore them apart in her hand and held her husband's head with her other as he cried into her shoulder. She had him back and it was easier to breathe. They were closer to getting her back, just the thought made her sleep a little easier every night.

"Olivia?" Came Peter's voice, pulling her from her thoughts. She startled a little, dropping the towel to the floor of their bathroom.

She looked at him. "Yeah?"

"You okay?" He asked her, his voice gentle, soft.

She nodded and bent down to pick up the towel, hanging it back up and straightening it on the towel rod.

"You're not a very good liar." When she looked at him, he continued. "Thinking about There?"

Olivia nodded a little. "Yeah. I...I can't stop thinking about it, Peter. About her, about...everything." Her voice wavered a little.

"Hey," Peter said, softly, gently grabbing Olivia's arm to pull her into his embrace, in which she came willingly. She laid her head on his chest, her head tucked under his chin. He held her close, one hand coming up to tangle in her hair, cradling the back of her head gently. "It's over. She's okay. We're okay."

Olivia closed her eyes and nodded against him. She let the sound of his steady heartbeat calm her racing one. She focused on the sounds of their home: the quiet hum of the dishwasher, the sound of jacket buttons clanking against the inside of the dryer, Etta's soft breathing on the baby monitor that they still kept with them.

Peter rubbed her back as she relaxed against him, smiling a little as the tension leaves her body. Olivia smiled too. Sometimes it amazed her how easily he could calm her down, how he could make this easy silence replace the horrible things running through her head. She pulled back to look at him. "I love you."

He smiled and kissed her gently. "I love you too." He reached up and gently caressed her cheek. "Let's go to bed."

She smiled and nodded, letting him lead her into their bedroom.


End file.
